Robbery Via Facebook- Time to Filter Your Facbook Friend List
Controversial stories about the use of social media are now becoming the part of the news. The recent one was a robbery case in Australia on 24th of May 2012, as mentioned by BBC News.
Two masked men robbed a house in Sydney, Australia; the robbers were armed with a wooden club and knife. There were 3 people at home at that time and fortunately robbers didn’t harm any of them.
Now, the interesting part of the story, this all happened because of a photo uploaded on Facebook. A 17 year old girl went to see her grandmother and there while counting the cash money (probably the savings of her grandmother) took the photo of the cash and uploaded it on Facebook. Approximately, 7 to 8 hours later, the robbers entered the house and asked for that girl; the 47 years old mother of the girl convinced the robbers that the girl mo longer lives with them. The robbers then took some small amount of money and some small personal property and left. Official police statement regarding the incident can be found here.
The incident clearly shows that the robbers were fully aware of the location of the family house of that girl and also it might be possible that one of those two robbers might be in the Facebook friend list of that 17 year old girl.
How much risky the sharing of photos, geo tagging (location based) and personal information on Facebook and other social media can be, this story shows it clearly. People should avoid sharing such personal stuffs publically and Facebook may adopt some new privacy policies restricting the users from sharing too personal data on Facebook publically.Also, people should avoid adding strangers to their friend list or at least should not share the personal and sensitive stuff with them.These matters are now getting a serious concern and should be deal seriously.
Author @ 3wogle